Trump’s statement on the murder of Jamal Khashoggi is worth examining for the baldness of its cynicism and perhaps unprecedented about-face on human rights. But Congress still has an opportunity to act where the White House falls short.

Imagine a modern city of sleek infrastructure offering the latest technological amenities for its citizens such as sensor crosswalks, free internet, electric traffic monitors, and other futuristic features. This vision of utopia is slowly, but steadily, coming into fruition in several urban cities, most notably in Singapore, Seoul, and New York. Plans to integrate smart […]

African states are increasingly leveraging the power of telecom operators to advance goals that the state itself struggles to secure (e.g. security and fiscal goals). This suggests a paradigmatic shift in African politics, whereby telecom operators have become a face of the state, exerting agency over state and citizen in pervasive and sometimes unexpected ways. […]

BY ERIN GREGOR Populism may have toppled the domino theory. On April 7, 1954, just before Vietnamese nationalists led by communist Ho Chi Minh won a decisive battle at Dien Bien Phu, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of countries falling like dominoes to communism. “You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over […]

Advice for the modern HKS student Thank you for sending us your questions! Gagan Vaseer, The Citizen’s advice columnist, answers your questions with some lighthearted advice. Question 1: Gagan, I like this guy in my program. We always have great conversation when we see each other, and he always says we should get coffee but […]

BY JASON HUNG The “bookstore incidents” In January 2018, Hong Kong-based Swedish Chinese publisher, Gui Minhai, was snatched by mainland Chinese authorities in Ningbo, China. Supposedly, Gui was on his way to Sweden’s consulate in Shanghai to renew his Swedish passport. It was the second time Gui went missing in two and a half years. […]

Venezuela is facing one of the biggest social collapses in modern history. The combination of economic and political unrest has mobilized millions of Venezuelans to leave their home and families behind to seek a better future, mostly to Latin American countries. With conservative estimates from around 2.6 to 3.4 million, though some reach as far […]

BY YASIR GÖKÇE “Our life was turned upside down. In one night, we were declared ‘terrorists,’” said Sevval, a 13-year-old who was among the victims of a massive crackdown on dissidents conducted by Turkey’s President Recep Erdogan. The crackdown continues today and impacts people who identify as critical of the Erdogan regime. Since a failed […]

Tay Hong Yi examines the psychology behind the “elite” and “neighbourhood” school labels, exploring the link between school names and the prestige associated with “elite” schools. He argues that school names play a role in entrenching educational stratification and have become an indicator of social hierarchy – and that reframing the discussion this way can facilitate more targeted education policy design.

Mitigating the Sahel Security Conundrum: The Need for a Strategic Paradigm Shift The Sahel security conundrum (described in this article as an “immunodeficiency security disorder”) is a unique security dilemma facing the region. The Sahel region represents the ‘spinal cord’ of the continent’s geopolitical body, and as such the phenomena of its security conundrum not only […]

BY KEVIN FRAZIER Distrust in the federal government pervades the United States. Its ubiquity threatens the stability of institutions and their capacity to govern. That’s why I recently sat down with Jeh Johnson. As General Counsel of the Department of Defense and, later, Secretary of Homeland Security under the Obama Administration, former Secretary Johnson established […]

The Idlib de-militarized zone (DMZ) deal is a powerful tool for advancing peace, but only if Turkey and Russia commit the resources to properly enforce it. The implementation of the Idlib DMZ holds powerful consequences for the ongoing Syrian constitutional committee and the broader peace process.